C.715 – THE LINDISFARNE GOSPELS

The opening page, known as the incipit page, of the Gospel of St Matthew. Stylistically, the decorative details share many common characteristics with Anglo-Saxon jewellery design.

LATE 11TH CENTURY – THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY

‘Here King Harold was killed’, states the Bayeux Tapestry. Harold is popularly assumed to be both the warrior with the arrow in his eye and the figure being felled by the Norman cavalryman.

1215 – MAGNACARTA

Only four of the first copies issued of Magna Carta survive. This is the best-preserved of the two versions held at the British Library.

C.1250 – THE CHRONICLES OF MATTHEW PARIS

Matthew Paris’s mid-thirteenth-century map of Britain is the oldest surviving example of a map that attempts – however imperfectly – to portray geographical accuracy rather than merely to present a schematic representation of the island. Over 250 places are marked as well as long-defunct features like the Hadrian and Antonine Walls.

1320 – THE DECLARATION OF ARBROATH

Eight Scottish earls and thirty-eight barons attached their seals to the Latin plea to Pope John XXII to recognize Scotland as an independent nation.